by Ross Pennie
“Um . . . don’t know exactly, but the families can give you the details. They’re in the waiting room.” Jeff grinned. “Let me know what you think. And Hamish —”
“I know. You owe me. Big time.”
Jeff Suszek let out a chuckle and strode back into the fray. He seemed to thrive on it.
Zol and Hamish returned to the waiting room. Hamish grabbed at his pager, suddenly alive on his belt. He squinted at the display. “It’s the micro lab. With the results of Travis’s Gram stain, I hope.” He surveyed the waiting room and mimed a phone with his hand. The only one visible was a pay phone on the other side of the glass entrance doors. He shrugged and told Zol not to move, then strode to the inner sanctum and called over his shoulder, “Back in a sec.”
When he returned two minutes later, Hamish’s face was grave. Moments before, his eyes had been bright, full of the excitement of the hunt, the clinician-detective in full steam. Now he looked furious. And frightened.
“What’s wrong?” Zol said.
The dark clouds deepened in Hamish’s eyes. “Not here,” he said. He rattled a bottle of pills clutched in his fist, clearly distressed by its contents. “Down the hall. To the cafeteria. It’s closed on Sundays, except for the vending machines. We can talk there.”
They slid onto a bench in the dimly lit cafeteria, an instant haven away from the noise and stench of the waiting room.
Hamish plunked the pill bottle onto the Formica tabletop. “Look at this, will you?” His face was still full of thunder.
Zol read the label. “It’s made out to Travis Andersen. Gabapentin. That’s an anticonvulsant.”
“One of the nurses gave them to me. His mother forgot them in Emerg.”
“I had no idea the boy had epilepsy. His family should have told me.”
Zol was beginning to realize Travis’s birthmark and epilepsy were probably caused by the proliferation of tiny arteries on his face and in his brain, a congenital condition called Sturge-Weber syndrome. Max and Travis had spent hours alone together in Zol’s computer room. The boy could have had a seizure there any time. Or at any of the soccer matches Travis’s parents never attended. It was one thing not to mollycoddle the child, but reckless not to have warned Zol about Travis’s epilepsy before Zol took the boy for a full day at the zoo on the other side of Toronto.
“Look again at the bottle,” Hamish said. “You missed something.”
Zol scanned the label. This time he saw the bold letters at the top: Steeltown Apothecary, Mohawk Road, Hamilton, Ontario. “I can’t believe it. Our friend Vik.”
“Care to guess what the micro tech just found in Travis’s spinal fluid?”
Zol had never liked being pumped by his professors and was glad he was past those humiliating days as a trainee, when relentless questions demanded picky answers. The answer to Hamish’s question was written all over his face. “Gram-positive bacilli,” Zol said. “Exhibiting tumbling motility.”
Hamish didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The fury in his eyes said it all.
At a moment of crisis, your life was supposed to pass before your eyes. But what Zol saw flashing was a headline: Meningitis Stumps Health Unit’s Szabo, Head Rolls.
“My God, Hamish. We’re not in Camelot anymore.”
Zol hung back as Hamish flicked on the light in the windowless classroom across the hall from the cafeteria and ushered in the families of the two soldiers with meningitis. Hamish directed everyone to take a seat and beckoned Zol to join him at the front.
“I’m Dr. Wakefield,” he began, “and this is my colleague Dr. Szabo from the public health department. Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed together. We hope you’ll be able to help us put our finger on how Peter and Gavin got sick.”
Zol put on his government-issue smile, the one that was supposed to convey compassion, dignity, and confidence without overdoing it. You lost your audience if they thought you were smug and armed with a load of bull. He could see this was going to be a tough crowd — tired, worried, and hungry. An explosive mixture.
“What’s this about a goddamn interview?” a forty-something man called from the back. “We’re looking for answers, Doc. Not more hot air.” His sour face, heavy winter boots, and oil-stained ski jacket suggested he’d been dragged off the snowmobile trails against his will on one of the final days of the season. “We’ve been here all friggin’ day and no one’s told us a goddamn thing.”
“Take it easy, Bob,” said the blonde woman sitting in front of him. “These are the first doctors we’ve talked to all day. Give them a chance.”
Ski-Doo Bob unzipped his coat, put his feet up on a chair, and leaned back with his hands clasped over his beer gut. The look on his face said She made me shut up for now, but I’m watching you.
“We do have some answers for you,” said Hamish. “But first I’d like to get a sense of who you all are.”
With the practised hand of a tutor leading a seminar, Hamish got each of them to introduce themselves and state their relationship to Captain Gavin Scarfe and Major Peter Legault. There were ten relatives in the room, including the two wives, Peter’s teenage son, Gavin’s identical-twin daughters, and an assortment of adult siblings and in-laws.
“Let’s start with what we know for sure,” Hamish said. “Gavin and Peter both have meningitis. That’s an infection of the membranes covering the brain.”
A murmuring went through the room. “Meningitis?” said Loreen Scarfe. “That’s contagious, eh?” Her huge hoop earrings flashed beneath curly red hair as she flicked her head to the left. “Oh my God, we’re all gonna get it.”
“This is not the highly contagious form of meningitis,” Hamish said, waving his hands, trying his best to smooth the waters. “We don’t expect any of you are going to get it.”
Well put, thought Zol. Fair and reasonably factual, with just the right spin. But a bit of a stretch in light of all the unexplained cases of listeria in the past few weeks, and the fact that the epidemic — yes, it really was an epidemic, not just a curious little cluster in an old-folks’ home — was accelerating. Until the source got pinpointed, anyone in the room could be the next victim.
Hamish pressed on, explaining that the exact identity of the germ responsible for the infection would be known tomorrow, and in the meantime the men were getting excellent treatment and should be showing signs of improvement over the next day or two.
“I want to know where they got it from,” said Shirley Legault, a compact woman with prematurely silver hair and an intelligent face. She unzipped her pink fleece vest and fanned herself. “Pete’s never been sick a day in his life.”
“Yeah, same for my Gavin,” said Loreen, her head flicking to the left every fifteen seconds like clockwork. “They musta picked it up in Afghanistan. Gavin said the conditions over there were, like, so filthy I wouldn’t be able to stand it for one minute.”
The twin teenage girls looked at each other and rolled their eyes as if sharing the knowledge that their mother was a neat freak with an embarrassing head-flicking tic and should be ignored at all cost. Poor girls, they resembled their mother far more closely than they’d like to believe — same hair and freckled skin, but without the tic.
Zol fingered the loonie in his pocket and nodded toward Shirley Legault, the silver-haired wife with the intelligent face. “We’re as anxious as you to find out how your husbands got this infection. That’s why we need your help.”
Hamish pulled a pen and notepad from his lab coat. “Let’s start with their travel history. When were they in Afghanistan?”
Bit by bit the history came out, peppered with a few false starts and moments of confusion. The five women in the room competed with each other over the accuracy of the details while the men watched from the back, grim and silent. They knew better than to contradict their women. Loreen had the loudest voice and the poorest head for dates and facts. Her twins and her sister-in-law corrected her repeatedly. It eventually got settled that Major Peter Legault and C
aptain Gavin Scarfe had served together with the Argylls for the past twelve years. They’d spent two terms in Afghanistan, the most recent a six-month deployment ending four months ago. They’d never been injured or required admission to either the base hospital in Kandahar or the NATO facility in Germany. It was clear they hadn’t picked up their listeria in an army medical centre.
“Have they served anywhere else overseas?” Zol asked.
“Pete was seconded to the UN in Haiti,” said Shirley Legault. “Logistical support for the Mounties.”
“And when was that?” Hamish asked.
“Three years ago.”
“No, Shirley. It was four,” corrected the blonde sitting beside her. “I know, because that was when I had my gallbladder out, on my thirty-fifth birthday, and ended up with peritonitis. Pete sent me a get-well card that was smudged in dirt and took three months to arrive.” She turned to Hamish with tears in her eyes and pain all over her face. “Pete’s my big brother and he never forgets my birthday.” Her lips began to quiver. “Please, Doc. You’ve . . . you’ve gotta make him better.”
Hamish looked flustered. He never coped well with tears. He glanced at Zol, searching for support, but all Zol could do was return a look that told him, Awkward, ain’t it.
Hamish pressed on with his questions, focusing on the stony faces of the men. Clearly, he found it easier to cope with testosterone’s smouldering anger than estrogen’s unbridled grief.
Zol felt the frustration building inside him. None of the families’ answers was helping clarify anything. The men had seemed perfectly well until they developed fever and headache three days ago. No gradual weight loss or insidious fatigue suggesting a chronic underlying illness. No rashes, bleeding gums, or hair loss to suggest poisoning by chemicals or radiation. Apart from their military assignments, the two friends led ordinary lives that provided no clues suggesting how they could have contracted listeria. No unusual hobbies that would bring them into contact with the pathogen — no taxidermy, no goat-milking, no cheese-making. No immune-suppressing medications. They never ate raw meat or unpasteurized cheese. Because of listeria’s short incubation period, their travel histories seemed increasingly irrelevant. Postings months or years ago in foreign hotspots would have no bearing on any acute listeria infection today.
Out of desperation, Zol asked, “Any other postings in exotic locations?”
The two wives looked at each other for a moment. Shirley Legault raised her eyebrows first. “Just if you count Bosnia.”
“And when was that?” Zol asked.
“In 2003. The last year of the peacekeeping mission.”
“No health problems there, I gather,” Hamish said dismissively, clearly wanting to move on from a travel history six years in the past.
The wives shook their heads.
Hamish looked around the room, a blank look on his face. He’d run out of questions and was still rattled by the blonde woman’s sobs and tears. He studied his notepad for a moment then looked up. “I almost forgot. What about medications? Do Peter and Gavin take anything on a regular basis?”
Again, the wives looked at each other as if searching for the right answer in the eyes of the other. For a long time, neither blinked, then they both looked away. They shook their heads. The redhead examined her nails as if deciding which colour to paint them next. Pete Legault’s wife fiddled with the zipper on her vest.
Hamish snapped his notepad shut and surveyed the group as if about to dismiss them. Clearly, he was none too pleased with the meeting’s paltry harvest of answers.
Zol held up his hand. “Before you go,” he said, “I wonder if Dr. Wakefield and I might have a word in private with Mrs. Scarfe and Mrs. Legault?”
Hamish looked puzzled. He’d been the de facto leader and seemed surprised at Zol’s sudden initiative.
The blonde woman, her tears dry, said, “We’re all family here. If you’ve got bad news, you better share it with all of us.”
“No bad news,” Zol assured her. “And it won’t take long.”
“Come on, Courtney,” Ski-Doo Bob said to the blonde. “Leave them to it. I’ll buy you a doughnut and coffee.” He took Courtney by the arm and steered her out the door with the others, then called back to the two officers’ wives, “We’ll meet you girls across the street at Tim’s.”
Zol closed the door after the others had filed out. He checked his watch. Four-thirteen. Colleen had her surveillance job at five. She’d said the timing on this gig was critical, and he’d promised he’d be back by four-thirty without fail. He never asked about her work. Her cases were confidential, and her methods stretched, if not the letter of the law, certainly its spirit. It gave him a kick to think he’d fallen in love with a private investigator, but her safety was a hell of a worry.
He calculated he could make it home in time if he left Caledonian’s parking lot at twenty past four — barring unexpected traffic on Sunday afternoon.
He ignored Hamish’s puzzled face and pressed on. “I sensed you ladies might have something to tell us in confidence. Something you didn’t want the others to know.”
Shirley Legault fanned herself then slid into a chair. Neither woman spoke.
“Your husbands’ medications,” said Zol, watching the women carefully. Loreen’s shoulders stiffened slightly. Shirley’s lips tightened, and she looked at the closed door as if worried someone was eavesdropping behind it.
Zol clasped his hands in front of him so the women could see he wasn’t writing any of this down. “What have they been taking?” he pressed gently. “I sense it’s something you don’t want others to know about.”
Addiction to oxycodone, a prescription narcotic, had become a problem everywhere. In the streetwise inner city and in the well-groomed suburbs, patients turned to dealers when their legitimate prescriptions ran out. In desperation, some injected crushed tablets directly into their veins, risking life-threatening infections like meningitis, hepatitis C, and HIV. Perhaps two terms in Afghanistan, a place rife with recreational narcotics, had turned these soldiers into junkies, weakened their immune systems, and laid them open to listeria.
“Perhaps they’re taking prescription painkillers?” Zol suggested softly. “More than what’s good for them?”
Hamish flashed him a look of understanding and stashed his notebook in his lab coat. The possibility of AIDS rendering these men vulnerable to listeria was striking him, too. “Oxycodone, maybe?” Hamish said. “You know, for chronic back pain.”
“Our husbands aren’t drug addicts,” said Shirley Legault, “if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“We had to beg to get them to take the medication in the first place,” Loreen Scarfe added.
Shirley frowned. Loreen had said too much.
“What medication?” Hamish said sharply.
The women studied their hands, their faces hard as stone.
Zol checked his watch again. He had to be out of here in three minutes, tops. He dug the loonie out of his pocket and wove it between his fingers. The rhythmic action always relaxed him, and he hoped it would have the same effect on the two women. They stopped examining their nails and began watching the coin as it floated from one hand to the other. Loreen’s eyes brightened, and Shirley watched intently, as if trying to work out the physics of the floating loonie.
Zol let the coin do its thing until he sensed Hamish was getting fidgety beside him. Taking the plunge, he said, “I’d like to share something confidential with you. Your husbands aren’t the first cases of meningitis we’re investigating. There’ve been a few others lately. And —”
“That’s why,” Hamish pleaded, “ if you’ve got something to tell us, you can’t hold back.”
Loreen’s eyes were as wide as the hoops in her ears. “You mean there’s an epidemic?”
“We don’t like to use that word,” Zol said. “It scares people. But you could call it that.”
“Other forces personnel?” Shirley asked. “We noticed a senior officer
from the Argylls in the hallway. She said her son was on the way to ICU. If you ask me, that sounds serious.”
“Does that kid have the same thing as Pete and Gavin?” Loreen asked, her head flicking faster than ever.
“What’s the boy’s name?” Zol said.
“Travis,” Shirley said.
“Thank you,” Zol said, struggling to maintain his composure. “That’s very helpful.”
Shirley drew her lips tighter across her teeth and fixed Zol with her dark green eyes. “You didn’t answer my question, Doctor.”
Zol knew if they were going to get the information they needed out of these women, he would have to bend the rules and give them something in return. He took a deep breath and hoped this didn’t get back to the privacy police. “We’re not supposed to tell you about other patients, but yes, that boy has the same infection as your husbands.”
Shirley turned to her friend and said, “I think that changes everything, eh Loreen?”
“I guess,” Loreen said, reluctantly. “You start.”
“Our husbands came back from their second tour in Afghanistan with . . .” Shirley paused. For the first time, tears welled in her eyes. She dug a tissue from her pocket. “With . . .”
“For heaven’s sake, it’s shell shock, pure’n simple,” Loreen said. Her eyes stayed dry, as though she’d done all her crying long ago and had no tears left for her husband’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Zol noticed her tic had stopped. “Like, you know, a bunch of really bad scenes,” Loreen continued. “Nightmares, flying off the handle, screaming at the kids for no reason.”
